The Little Russian Servant

Neely's Booklet Series. No. 24, June 12, 1899. Issued weekly. $5.00 a year. Entered as second-class matter at New York Post Office.

F. TENNYSON NEELY, PUBLISHER. LONDON. NEW YORK. CHICAGO.

THE LITTLE RUSSIAN SERVANT.

"Who's that?" said the countess, stopping in front of a young girl of fifteen or sixteen, bent over an embroidery frame. The young girl rose, prostrated herself thrice before her mistress, then, getting up, remained standing, her hands hanging by her side, her head slightly bent forward under the investigating gaze of the countess, who through her eyeglass closely scrutinized her.

"It is the new girl, your highness," answered the head lady's maid, coming forward with the air of importance that thirty years' employment gives to no matter what functionary. "She is the daughter of Foma, of the village of Ikonine. She is come in her turn to pay her father's _obrok_--he is in Moscow."

"These peasant girls can do nothing," said the countess, with a wearied air: "what do you expect to get out of this one?"

"She doesn't embroider badly, your highness; pray look yourself. She can be put to the embroideries--not to the ground, but to the trimmings. This is for the toilet table of Madame la Comtesse."

The noble lady, who could hardly see, being short-sighted from her birth, examined the embroidery frame so closely that the tip of her nose grazed the cloth.

"That's not bad," she said. "Come here, little girl."

The little girl advanced, and the countess inspected her as minutely as she had done the embroidery.

"How pretty she is! What's your name?"

"Mavra."

The word came like a breath from the rosy lips.

"You must speak louder if you want us to hear you," said the head lady's maid angrily.

Mavra turned her large, blue, startled eyes toward her, let them drop, and said nothing.

"Sit down to your work," said the countess, amused at her new toy. With a quick, graceful movement, the young girl resumed her seat on the wooden chair, and the needle, firmly held between her agile fingers, went in and out of the stuff with that short, sharp noise that stimulates the action of the hand.

"That's right, you may go on," said the countess, her nerves irritated by the regularity of the movement.

Then, turning her back upon the young girl and trailing the heavy, sumptuous folds of her dressing-gown along the carefully-washed pine-wood floor, she disappeared through the door, which was respectfully closed after her by the head lady's maid. The countess, an accomplished house-mistress, made a practice of paying a daily visit to this room, which was reserved for the women of her service. Mavra was left alone in the workroom, a large, well-lighted chamber, furnished simply with tables and chairs for the use of the innumerable women and girls invariably attached to the service of those noble ladies who knew so well how to maintain their rank in that blessed time of serfdom. At this hour the workroom was empty. Some of the women were washing, others ironing, some cleaning and turning upside down everything in the private apartment the countess had just left. The young peasant girl, with her needle uplifted, rested her ruddy hand upon the edge of the frame and looked around her.

What multitudes of embroidered gowns with their rich lace trimmings hung there on the wall, waiting some slight repairs!--what endless petticoats with their ornamented flounces all freshly ironed on cords along the huge room!--what countless lace caps, worn hardly an hour, pinned to a pincushion as large as a pillow, used only for this purpose! and there, in a basket on the corner of the table, what piles of cambric chemises, delicately piped and pleated, trimmed with Valenciennes lace and ornamented with bright ribbons! And all this for one person! without counting the silk stockings in that other basket, and the rings by dozens worn by the countess on her thin fingers. In this world of living beings under God's heaven, what importance given to one person, who needed so many other persons to serve her! And how the nothingness of these was made more emphatic by the dominance of that! Mavra sat wonder-stricken. The head lady's maid coming into the room found her still in a state of stupefaction, stupefied above all at having made these reflections.

"Well, you are lucky!" she said to her, with a pleased look. "Our countess took a fancy to you at the first glance; you are now on the list of embroiderers! You may thank God for it. It is not often the countess takes a fancy like that at first sight."

"Is she, then, unkind?" innocently inquired the girl.

"Unkind! Oh, no; capricious, like all mistresses, but the kindest lady in the world, and generous! Besides, this is a rich house; nothing is counted--nothing at all. This is better than your village," continued Dacka, proud of belonging to such noble masters, and desirous to impress on the mind of the simple peasant girl the importance and dignity of the functions she was promoted to.

"It is more beautiful," replied Mavra, bending intently over her work.

"It was lucky they taught you to embroider, else you would have been sent to the poultry-yard to feed the cocks and hens and look after the calves. How did you learn?"

"My mother taught me; she was formerly in service; she was a dvorovaia in the time of the late countess. She married a peasant."

"Ah!" said Dacka, "I thought your manners were not quite those of a peasant girl; if your mother was in service, that's another thing. Come, take a cup of coffee with me. Prepare the coffee-pot and make haste before the others come; I can't ask every one, you understand."

To Mavra there was but little difference between the isba of her father and the workroom of the seignorial mansion. Here, as there, her life was spent in assiduous work from sunrise to sunset. There, her mother, an austere, somber woman, like most village matrons to whom life had proved no light matter; here, the lady's maid, often grumbling, but at times kind and even condescending. The chief difference between the two modes of life consisted in the daily visits of the countess, who generally said nothing, but passed with a solemn air through this roomful of silent, awe-stricken women. But one thing was lacking to Mavra, and this nothing could replace--the evening hour of rest which she used to spend by the fountain when sent to draw water for her mother, or on the threshold of their cabin, watching the spring rain falling soft and warm, melting the snow so quickly that its thickness might be seen visibly diminishing; or, again, in the month of May, standing at the edge of the forest, listening to the nightingales singing on the delicate golden branches of the perfumed birch tree.

Winter passed fairly well, but when the first breath of warm air set the melted snow streaming down the roofs, which again the night's frost transformed into long stalactites of ice, Mavra felt a strange, vague aching in her heart. The house was overheated, and the close, nauseous air made her sick. What would she not give to run as of old over the moors, to see if the moss were beginning to appear under the crystallized, transparent carpet of snow!

"What's the matter with this little girl?" asked the countess one day, as she stopped before the frame at which the young peasant girl was diligently working. "She was as fresh as a rose, and now she has grown yellow. Do you feel pain anywhere, Mavra?"

Mavra raised her blue eyes to the noble lady who, for the second time in her life, deigned to address her, and replied in her low voice:

"Nowhere, your highness."

"Then why are you so yellow?"

"I don't know, your highness."

The countess dropped her eyeglass and looked kindly at the young girl.

"I know," said she after a moment's pause; "the child wants air. She came here from her village, and has passed the whole winter stooping over her frame. Henceforth, little girl, you must get out into the fresh air twice a day, and must learn the service of my bedroom; this will give you exercise."

Thereupon the countess quitted the room, followed by Mavra's grateful eyes, now filled with tears. From that day Mavra worshipped the countess; to approach her, to touch what she had worn, to serve her, to receive her orders and execute them with the utmost speed and dexterity, was the great joy of this humble girl. Her mistress, wrapped in all this gorgeous luxury, the elements of which had been so long under her eyes in the workroom, appeared to her as some august being nearer her Creator than any other of her fellow-creatures. Not only did Mavra pray to God for her, but at times she inwardly prayed to her as to a saint, thinking the pleadings of a being so superior must have equal weight with the powers of heaven as with those of earth.

Summer was already on the wane when the noble mansion, habitually so tranquil, was suddenly filled with noise and gayety. The young Count Serge had sent his carriages on before him; saddle-horses and hounds were stamping and neighing in their stalls and barking in their kennels as though the one aim of life was to make all the noise possible.

"How handsome he is, our young count!" Dacka kept on saying the livelong day, to while away the tedious hours in the silent workroom. "It was I who received him in my arms when he was born."

And she repeated again and again, with inexhaustible complacency, the history of Serge's birth, and the legend of his boyhood up to the moment when this dear treasure of her heart had gone to join the corps of pages, his trunks laden with cakes, jams, and all that could possibly be eaten under heaven.

The workgirls gave listless heed to these hundred times repeated narrations, but Mavra was never tired of hearing them; it was like receiving a sort of gospel into her heart. Her good and revered protectress made all things dear and venerated that touched her nearly; and this only son, loved, adored, longed for, became a supernatural being, a kind of Messiah to her.